The sun is, most likely, still gonna shine in November

After a massively high-spending recall campaign, a controversial Republican state governor has held onto power with a slightly increased majority (while losing control of the state senate). Naturally, the oh-so-left-wing US media are spinning this as Terrible Democrat Defeat, Disaster Due for November, etc.

To highlight the fact that this spin is absolute dingoes’ kidneys, it’s been pointed out that the Walker campaign spent $7 for every $1 his opponent could muster, which is not really a feasible plan for the November election (no, not even for someone with Mitt Romney’s wallet).

This figure is slightly unfair: the difference wasn’t as stark between interest groups which didn’t donate directly to the campaign. Not much less stark, though. Some quick-and-dirty analysis on CNN’s handy “who gave what” piece shows that we have:

So the Republicans only need to manage to outspend the Democrats by 2.5:1 in November. That’ll be nice and easy for them.

They’ll also need a charismatic candidate who’s become popular among independents (17% of Walker voters currently say they’ll go for Obama in November) through being fiscally conservative but avoiding the social culture war. That’ll be nice and easy for them.

* The “estimate” is where I’ve split the outside donations that aren’t named to specific groups between the parties according to the split of named groups. If you ignore it instead, you get 72%/28%.